Course Context

Power, Race, and Culture in the U.S. City (History 31516) is an upper division course at the City College of New York (CCNY/CUNY). History and American Studies majors mostly comprised the course which focused on New York City history and culture. The course was also part of a United States History (USHI) initiative that is helping faculty from each of the CUNY campuses offer "customized" versions of their United States History surveys tht use online instructional materials and approaches. The goal is a "hybrid" model in which approximately two-thirds of instructional time is devoted to lecture and classroom discussion and one-third to helping students to actually "do" history," using source materials we have prepared for them and will deliver via our CUNY history website.

Links

History 31516
Course website

Key Findings

• Students were quite eager to look at images as well as to read historical and literary texts. But the exercise of putting them together, moving back and forth as an "expert" might do, proved elusive for many. A better structure for emphasizing contextual thinking needs to be present throughout the course. "Slowing down" such as the late nineteenth century unit proved most rewarding for students.
• During the course of the semester I realized that I was less interested in the goal of "getting the students to think visually" than I was in "getting the students to think visually as historians." That goal needs to be explicitly built into the course since the "visual turn" can be misinterpreted by students as encouragement to move away from historical context.

Ella Watson

Ella Watson (Washington, D.C. Government charwoman - alternative title), photographed by Gordon Parks, Aug. 1942. Office of War Information Photograph Collection. Library of Congress, America from the Great Depression to World War II.

Project Summary

The project looks at the relationship between students' visual thinking and historical understanding. I am interested in the process of incorporating visual materials into my urban culture course History 31515.

How I Collected Evidence

There were several sources of evidence for understanding the relationship between visual and historical understanding. Students did an in-class "reading" of an image from the 1930s-40s during our first meeting; they returned to another set of images at our last class. There were several online viewing assignments that resulted in postings and discussions on our class Blackboard site. Finally, I conducted interviews with several students after the end of the semester which included "think'alouds" with various texts-primary and secondary, visual and literary.

Evidence of Student Learning

• One's "reading" of Gordon Parks' photograph of Ella Watson and a George Bellows painting, Cliff Dwellers, 1913
• Student Two's "reading" of Gordon Parks photograph and then a comparison of Jacob Riis and Ashcan School representations of early twentieth century city.
• Student Two Interview - looking at at a chair shop trade card from 1813.

Links

Student_One.doc
Student_Two.doc
George Bellows, Cliff Dwellers